News Roundup

Alberta has already accepted the recommendations of the controversial Mazankowski report which includes the possibility of delisting some services from public coverage and putting more private money into health care.

Many of the other provinces have already taken it upon themselves to make changes to the way they deliver health care, Mr. Campbell said.

“We’ve made a significant shift. We’ve taken responsibility for changing the structural components of health care.”

Less than a month after the UN and the Cairo-based Arab League jointly decried the lack of political freedoms in the Arab world, Egypt’s autocratic regime has emphasised the point by jailing the country’s best-known civil rights activist.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years in prison by the state security court in Cairo this week for allegedly defaming Egypt. Professor Ibrahim’s “crimes” included accepting EU funds to find ways of ensuring parliamentary elections are free and fair; and drawing attention to civil rights abuses, particularly affecting Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.